1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to computing devices and more particularly to stand alone apparatus for storing a plurality of portable memory devices and capable of displaying identification and content information about the stored elements.
2. Background of the Invention and Description of the Prior Art
Storage of objects containing information is well known in the art. Libraries provide for storing books and other kinds of objects that contain information. The libraries include catalogs of the books stored on its shelves for users to determine what objects are stored there along with information about the contents in each object listed in the catalog.
The advent of personal computers and the availability of external plug-in devices containing memory readable by the computer led to the need for ways to store the external memory devices when not in use. Memory devices in the form of magnetic tape, or magnetic or optical discs, and more recently, miniature memory drives and semiconductor memory devices such as thumb drives and the like can typically can benefit from some form of organized storage so that a particular memory element or device can be conveniently carried by a user and inserted into the computer to access its contents. However, users of portable memory elements often encounter a tedious task to find a particular unlabeled element or to determine quickly the contents of a particular element, when the computer has one or two USB ports, for example. Even if an adapter having several USB ports is available the task is not made easier. The difficulty remains as to how to determine the contents of the memory.
Heretofore such memory elements or devices must be inserted into the computer or an accessory adapter or drive unit to determine the identity and contents of the memory and to access that contents. This is an inconvenience when many such memory elements are accumulated, especially because the memory elements themselves often contain no external indicia of its identity or contents. Examples of these conventional adapters include an adapter to connect a USB flash drive to an input port on the computing device such as a PC or tablet or mobile telephone device. Some adapters include the ability to connect several such flash drives to a computing device to access the flash drive. Adapters of this kind are not well-suited to storage of the flash drives and must be connected to a computer to determine the identity and content of the flash drive. Providing a USB port receptacle in a computing device is also not well suited to storing an accumulation of flash drives or like memory elements and providing readouts of any of the plurality of flash drive units a user may have accumulated except to insert each flash drive into the receptacle one-by-one. So-called “USB hubs” provide receptacles for connecting several USB-compatible elements to one computer at the same time, but this again is not a satisfactory way to store such memory elements as the collection of them accumulates. Further, each such element must still be connected electrically to the computer to learn its identity and contents.
There is thus a need for a system or method of organizing a multiplicity of memory elements that overcomes the above deficiencies.